Eighteen Going on Fourteen
by LieutenantBear
Summary: Pavel can't remember a thing about the past four years of his life. Does this mean he has forgotten Hikaru forever? Chekov/Sulu


When Hikaru Sulu beamed up from the surface, he held the unconscious, dying Pavel Chekov in his arms. His mind was racing, and he forgot what he was supposed to be doing, so he just stood there, frazzled, looking back and forth for someone to help him. Then, the medical team showed up, and he remembered having Kirk order for a medical team so Pavel had a fighting chance for survival. They took him and rushed him to Sick Bay.

A few hours later, McCoy was shouting orders to doctors and nurses, and Hikaru was waiting to hear something, please, something about his friend. McCoy finally let him see Pavel, and Hikaru got a rising feeling of hope in his chest. Pavel's head was black and blue, most of the blood had been wiped away. "How many times had he been hit?" McCoy asked. "And with what? A frying pan?!"

"I don't know. I don't remember. It all happened so fast I just…" He sighed. "One minute he was laughing and making jokes with me, the next thing I knew, he'd stopped laughing, and I turned around, and he was gone. Then all of a sudden I had wondered into the trees and he was just… There." He shook his head. "Anyway… Is he gonna be okay?"

"He'll be fine. Won't wake up for quite a bit though." McCoy said.

Hikaru didn't mind. He grabbed a chair and waited, eventually falling asleep, but when his breathing pattern changed, the machine beeped faster, and it woke Hikaru. Pavel had woken up, but was in a panic. "Where am I?" He said, panting.

McCoy was there in a split-second. "Pavel, you're in Sick Bay." He said. "Take deep breaths… There… Why don't you remember Sick Bay?"

Pavel paused. "I… Don't know sir. How should I address you?"

"Address me?" McCoy said.

"Yes, what is your name?" He said. "Has my voice gotten deeper?" Pavel asked.

"My name is Doctor McCoy. And no, your voice has been the same since you were seventeen last year." McCoy said, raising an eyebrow.

Pavel laughed. "I wasn't seventeen last year!" He said. "I was thirteen!"

Hikaru didn't know what to make of this, he was deep in thought, and his eyes darted from Pavel to McCoy, and back again.

"Pavel, what is your rank?" McCoy asked, crossing his arms.

"Cadet." Pavel said. "First year, sir. Where am I?"

"You're on the starship… The U.S.S Enterprise…" McCoy said.

"No way! I am on a starship?" His face fell. "Why?"

"You're our navigator. And you've lost the last four years of your memory." McCoy said, his eyes wide.

Pavel didn't know what to say, he looked around, at Hikaru for a moment, then back to McCoy. Then, Kirk walked in. "Mister Kirk!" Pavel said. "What are you doing here? I saw you the other night!"

"I'm… Captain of the ship, what are you talking about, 'the other night?' I see you every day on the bridge." Kirk said.

"You're a captain? But even if it is four years later, you'd be the youngest to even captain a Federation vessel." Pavel said.

Kirk nodded. "The one and only." He turned and whispered to McCoy. "What is wrong with him?"

Hikaru sat next to Pavel's bed with his head down. "I guess… You don't remember me either, do you?"

Pavel looked at him carefully, and Hikaru picked his head up. Pavel scanned his face and blushed. "I'm sorry. I do not remember your name. Your face seems recognizable, but I do not know who you are."

Hikaru put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't, not in front of Pavel. It wasn't Pavel's fault. It could be worse. He could be dead. "My name is Hikaru Sulu." He said, his voice shaking. "We've seen each other around the Academy, but we didn't talk until your third year. I remember the date, May 9th. We had a project to work on, you were sixteen. And… Now you don't remember me…"

"I'm sorry." Pavel said. "I don't know you, but I remember..." He closed his eyes and tried to think, then he winced and put his head back. "I can't think right now, my head hurts." Hikaru understood. He had been hurt enough today.

Hikaru went back to his quarters that he usually shared with Pavel, and buried his face in his pillows, and cried. He usually didn't mind being this sad, but now there was nobody to make him feel better. He wanted Pavel back. He wanted Pavel to hug him, he wanted to run his fingers through Pavel's thick curls, he wanted Pavel to kiss him on the cheek and whisper nice things into his ear, but Pavel didn't remember that that had ever happened. Pavel forgot that he loved Hikaru. Pavel just thought he was a random stranger from school.

Thinking of this just made Hikaru even more upset, and he felt freezing cold. It was always cold in their room because Pavel wanted it to feel like Russia. He was used to the cold. And when he asked Hikaru if he could change the temperature, Hikaru had just stood there, staring into Pavel's eyes, and nodded. He would pay for it by freezing for the next few nights until he adjusted, but Pavel would always hug him while they slept, so he never complained to him.

"No, God, why? Why'd he have to forget his last four years? I… Why couldn't he have just… I don't know… Gotten a concussion or something like normal people do when they get hit in the head? I woulda taken care of him! I would do anything for him… Just… Please, no…" He hugged his pillow, and after hours of crying, he finally fell asleep, not that it got much better.

He had a dream, of course, about Pavel. They were happy, and they were sleeping, and Hikaru was holding Pavel's little pale hand, but when they woke up, Pavel had no clue who he was. He didn't love him, he was afraid of him, and he ran away. Hikaru tried to follow him, but he couldn't move.

Hikaru woke up a mere two hours later, on the floor. His back hurt, and obviously, he had fallen off the bed in the midst of his nightmares. Most of the time, when he had nightmares, he would sit upright, and Pavel rubbed his back and told him it was only a dream. Except this time, it wasn't. Pavel still didn't know who he was. Hikaru could only feel Pavel's love through his memories. When Pavel would wake up, crying, because he remembered something tragic that happened to him when he was a child, and re-lived it through a dream, Hikaru would hold him by his shoulders and whisper to him that it was all over, that he was safe, and the past was gone. Or when Pavel came back from a bad day and would cry into Hikaru's shoulder or lay his head in Hikaru's lap and tell him what had happened as Hikaru stroked his hair.

Hikaru didn't want to get up off the floor. Someone would eventually call him to the bridge. He had a sick feeling in his stomach. Eventually, Uhura knocked in his door. "Please don't come in." He said. "Please, I want to be alone."

"It's Lieutenant Uhura." She said. "Please, let me in?"

Hikaru sighed. "You can come in."

She saw him laying in the floor and helped him up, and sat with him on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry about Pavel." She said. "You know, he's still the same person. I'm sure if he got to know you again, he'd feel the same as he did two days ago."

"No, he has to go back to the Academy. He doesn't remember most of his training." He said. "He has to go back. They'll be dropping him off at the next starbase." He was hysterically crying into a pillow. "I just want Pavel back, I miss him so much." He said.

"I know you do." Uhura said. "The captain wants to let you know that if you need a few days off, that it'll be fine."

"No, I… I can work my next shift." Hikaru said, straightening out his spine. "I'll be fine, thank you."

Uhura waited a moment, then nodded and left.

The next day, Hikaru's alarm went off, and he instinctively looked to the left side of the bed, for Pavel. Every morning, he would wake up, look to his left, see Pavel still sleeping like an angel, and smile to himself, then he would kiss Pavel on the nose, just barely, and he would always wake up. The bed was empty now, and Hikaru put his arm over where Pavel used to sleep. His chest tightened, but he exhaled deeply, and it gradually went away.

He walked onto the bridge like he always did, and despite Kirk's surprise, he didn't say anything to him, and shot Spock a look so he wouldn't either.

For a moment, Hikaru forgot that Pavel wasn't on the bridge anymore, and turned to say something to him, but saw that it wasn't him, and his chest started hurting again, this time, badly. He tried to ignore it, but it tightened his lungs, and he just couldn't take it. "Captain, may I be excused… Just for a few minutes?" He asked.

"Of course, Mister Sulu." Kirk said, nodding."

Pavel couldn't figure out that man. He sat around in his temporary quarters, looking down at his feet. "It's good to see that I get taller when I'm eighteen." he said. "Although… Not much." He went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. This was him now. He went from fourteen to eighteen in the blink of an eye. "Who was that Sulu man?" He asked himself. He remembered looking up at him in Sick Bay, how he blushed. "I can't have a crush on him, he's older than me by over ten…" He paused. "Right, I'm eighteen now."

"There's something special about him, I know it." He rubbed his eyes and looked harder. For a second, a memory played back in his head of Hikaru, and him, and they were both in the bathroom in front of the mirror too. Laughing, and joking, and… Kissing! Pavel let the memory play all the way through until he couldn't remember anything else. "Mister Sulu is in love with me?"

A few moments later, McCoy knocked on his door. "It's Doctor McCoy, come on out!"

Pavel stepped nervously out of the room. This man made him nervous, for some reason. Some sort of memory he'd saved. He hoped he didn't need a physical. "Yes?"

"I wanna see if I can bring your memory back. I'm taking you to the bridge, you haven't seen it in a while." He followed behind McCoy. "Maybe if I put you in an area you were once familiar with, it'll come back to you."

He was led on the bridge, and stood behind the Captain. "Pavel, it's good to see you!" The captain said. Sulu turned around in his chair, and smiled at Pavel, who, of course, smiled nervously back, as his face turned pink again. They were about to jump to warp, Pavel's favorite part of the trip, even though on his first mission aboard the ship, it made him feel sick.

Pavel stepped behind where Hikaru was sitting. "You must be a very good helmsman." He said. Hikaru didn't say anything. He didn't want to spark a conversation that would reduce him to tears. "I remembered something about you today." Pavel said. Hikaru stopped whatever he had been doing, and stood up. Kirk sighed and ordered for another helmsman to take his place. "I was looking in the mirror." Pavel said softly. "But I remembered you and I, and we were laughing and having fun, it looked great."

Hikaru stood still for a moment, then a great smile spread across his face, and he hugged Pavel, right there, and kissed him on the nose. Pavel didn't react at first, and Hikaru stopped for a moment, and looked at him, then Pavel smiled.

"Hikaru?" Pavel said. He turned around. "We first met on May 9th, we were working on an astrophysics project. Your favorite color is lime green, and your favorite kind of music is pop-rock even though it's rarely ever played anymore, you had a pet when you were thirteen, a red labrador, and one more thing that I know about you as that you loved me more than anyone else in the world, and I never forgot your face for a single second."

Hikaru blinked, then hugged him as tightly as he could. "You remember! You remember everything! I love you so much, Pavel, don't ever scare me like that again! That nearly killed me!" Tears streamed down his face, but this time, he was enjoying every bit of it. "I love you so much." He said.

"Alright, you little lovebirds!" Kirk said. "You two know what to do."

Hikaru and Pavel nodded.

"Course heading, Captain?" Pavel said, smiling.

He set the coordinates, and they jumped to warp speed, feeling the slight pull of the ship for the first few seconds. "Warp five, and holding, Captain."

"Fantastic." Kirk said. "You got to do the fun part, now go on and get outta here." He said. "But I want Pavel to check in with Bones again tomorrow!"

Bones just rolled his eyes. "I'm sure he'll be _fine_, Jim."


End file.
